Some recent listener feedback

Shutters Inc

Firstly let me start with reference to something that Bruce had mentioned, I think in episode 137.
You were quite concerned with the audio quality that you were able to present to listeners from the portable recorder used at Echuca, the audio on that episode was fine.
I have recently dabbled with other podcasts, and have since canceled all of the downloads except Shutters Inc.
Bruce the quality of the audio delivered by you leaves all others far behind, keep up the good work.
Thanks for the great pod casts not only in the information passed on but also the technical quality.
Mark ChapmanSine Language

Bruce, I can only say, in my opinion, that the services you are providing are greatly appreciated.
J. R.Building the pod

I've only recently decided to get back into music production after a prolonged absence.
So, when it came to choosing a DAW, it came down to a choice between FL Studio and Audition.
Dollar wise, quite similar although FL Studio does offer more in the way of virtual instruments for this price range.
But I chose Audition for two clear reasons.
1. I really like the look and feel. The layout is just easy on the eye and made sense to me very quickly.
2. I knew I had a great teacher. I discovered Building the Pod through the Adobe web site and soon found Sine Language.
I have to thank you sincerely for your weekly tuition.
It has turned a somewhat severe learning curve into managable bite size pieces.
I simply can't overstate how thankful I am of your weekly podcasts.
Bye for now.
Ross Huntley

This week, Shelton discusses noise reduction with regard to long (time) exposures in the digital realm,
Bruce’s latest EBay purchase,
and Gary Hegenbart sent me a great e-mail about shooting in Yosemite National Park. (Thanks mate!)

This week, I read an absolutely amazing thread on prosoundweb about digital levels.
Some of the ideas fly a little bit in the face of some of the things I’ve suggested in the past (particularly with regard to tracking as hot as possible).
Having now finished reading it (I was still half way through it at the time I recorded this episode), the main gist of what was being discussed (and there were some pretty big industry heavyweights in there) was that if you are tracking in 24 bit, there is no need to aim for the hottest possible level to disc. These guys were advocating tracking with average levels around -20dBFS (and peaks around -12dBFS)! Now, if anyone had tried to sell me on that idea a week ago, I probably would have held on to my existing position and disagreed.
But no, the theory makes a whole lot of sense.
In a nutshell, the idea is this:
At 24 bit resolution, we’ve got 144dB of S/N ratio to play with (or you could refer to it as dynamic range if you wanted to).
NOTHING (Shall I repeat that? NOTHING) that you are going to record into your DAW has that kind of dynamic range.
Nothin’, zip, nada, nil.
For podcasters, the widest dynamic you’re likely to deal with will be your own voice, and even if you’re REALLY inconsistent with levels (and don’t own an outboard compressor), the most you’ll have to contend with might be in the vicinity of 50dB (from the quietest passage to the loudest passage)…. but even that is unlikely.
So, if you track with peaks at -12dB, AND you happen to have a soft passage 50dB below that (-62dBFS), you’ve still got 82dB of S/N below ya!
But why would you need to track that low?
Well, the theory (and according to these heavyweights who are tracking and mixing this way, the practise) suggests that if you track too close to full scale, you might introduce clipping when you start running plugins (EQ, compressors, peak limiters, whatever) that don’t operate at higher bitrates.

Look, it’s not a thread for the faint hearted, but if you have an interest in getting the best possible quality out of your digital audio setup, it’s worth the time and effort.
It took me 4 days to get through it because I kept on re-reading lines and paragraphs to make sure I understood it.
Also, the real meat starts about 7 pages in when Paul Frindle weighs in on the discussion.

OK, enough of that.

This week in the podcast, part 4 in the series on constructing your own promo: some tips on track laying.

Having now read the article, even I have learned some more about how the prcoess works.

It makes interesting reading (if you’re into this kind of thing), and will only take you about 15 minutes (there’s 4 pages to the article).

Interestingly, the Nyquist Theorem actually dates from work done by Harry Nyquist way way back in 1928 (the Ars article says ’27, the Wikipedia article says ’28)…. certainly a lot earlier than I had previously thought.

Anyway, thought I’d share this with you in the absence of a Sine Language for this week.

Cheers,

Bruce.

Comments Off on Some bedtime reading for you

October 8, 2007

Hi all,
Last night, I posted those 2 entries (for BTP and SI), and I expected WordPress to release them at designated times, but for some reason, it chose not to.
So, this morning, I had to force them manually.
Just thought I’d let you know why they didn’t appear when they should have.
Cheers,
Bruce.

October 6, 2007

I have had no end of offers of help in the last couple of days. I’d like to say “Thank you very much” to everyone who wrote to me. Your offers are all greatly appreciated.

But I would also like to let everyone know that if you are about to send me an e-mail offering your skills, it’s ok now. Don’t bother. I still appreciate the thought, don’t get me wrong, but it gets to be tiresome writing private replies to everyone!

In the less-than-articulate words of a famous Australian boxer, “Loveyasall!”

Comments Off on WordPress hackers, stand down

October 4, 2007

OK peoples, someone out there MUST know something about CSS/WordPress themes.
If that’s you, I’m keen to hear from you.
There are some things I’d like to do with audio2u.com (and the related domains) that are just beyond my understanding of CSS. You’ll probably laugh when you hear how simple it is!
I have a limited budget for some development work, so if you think you can help, please drop me an e-mail at studio@audio2u.com